Warbird Information Exchange

I just read the thread on the S-51 crash in Oxnard and the post on the engine type jogged my memory.
Has anyone heard of Falconer Engines? These were v-12's based on the small block Chevy. The original was made of 3/4 of two 350's, welded together that not only ran but survived a dyno flog.
I was in their shop in 1991 to pick up an engine block for a project that never came off but there were 1:1 drawings on the walls of a scale P-51 that was or was to be powered by an Alum. Falconer. I was more interested in the biz at hand and didn't pursue the s-51.
Mr. Falconer's company truck was a 4x4 Suburban with one of his engines under the hood. Daily driver.
Anybody heard of these?

Doug

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

The Falconer engines are used in the all composite Thunder Mustang replicas. One of them was really hauling in the sport class at Reno until an accident burned it to the ground. (Pilot was uninjured). That team is hard at work building another one.

For many answers go to:

www.thundermustang.com

I was part of the gang that built and shipped 34 Thunder Mustang kits between 1997-2000. Ryan's engines were the absolute best for such a project and we had minimum problems with it.

I don't think any other modern day (new in the last 50-55 years) V-12 has ever been sucessfully flown in a homebuilt, let alone kitted. A few homebuilt projects were slated to fly with Jaguar V-12's. Maybe one or two did, at least for a time. A couple of one-off homebuilt fighter replicas chose the old Ranger V-770 and did okay.

The Atlas V-12 (roots to C.J. Batten) showed promise for the replica and racing market in the 1998-2001 period but as far as I know it has never been flown.

This post begs the question: Has any other new design (since 1953) V-12 been used in any airplane anywhere in the world with success?

You guys built one hell of a kit. Those thing are absolutely beautiful.

It is not a new engine design, rather a new adaptation, but a Jaquar V-12 has been used in homebuilts. One was a Spitfire replica built mostly of wood in England. It flew okay, but the Jag engine is a little down on power, perhaps it is about 300hp? and you need more like 500hp? THE Falconer was about 550 or 600 so gave good performance in the replica Mustang. I got a flight in one and it is pretty impressive.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

due to a landing gear failure...not terminal but horribly under powered

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EVERYTHING that CAN fly should be ALLOWED to FLY!
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P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from midget.

I worked for Ryan for many years as his fabricator.

www.falconerengines.com

One of the best engine guys ever in the biz dating back to the Granatelli NOVI days. The V-12 derived from small block Chevy geometry but was a ground up new production. 8.8" longer than a V-8 small block, tested and developed in his Suburban up and over the mountains in northern California. The Thunder project was amazing but unfortunately, financially troubled.

Ryan also developed a V-6 for IMSA (Dany Ongais/Interscope) and an all aluminum, splayed valve V-6 for Indy (Foyt). See below.





Power to weight of the Thunder Mustang exceed the original.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Two of the Thunder Mustangs cleared customs here at BLI after the Abbotsford airshow. They sound real similiar to a Merlin at idle, but have a raspier, tinny sound at take-off power. Great performing little planes; it's too bad one was involved in the fatal crash that appears (from an outsiders viewpoint) to have contributed to shutting the operation down. Wish I could afford to build one

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"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

Alright! Way to go team! It is a small world. Sdennison, were you there in Sept. '91?
Bill, from your post, it seems you enjoyed the flight.
How many Thunder Mustangs are still around and how many airworthy?
Hutch and I were there to pick up a bare block for reference. I was at CTX Motorcars building kit car Cobras and he had a brainstorm to stretch one for a Falconer. We never got the kit maker to stretch a frame for us to we sent it the V-12 back home. It sure was impressive sitting in the middle of the shop.
I was shown some damage in their dyno room where one of the Indy V-6's came unglued at full toot. My attention was directied to a big noogie in the cinder blocks about a dozen feet off the floor from flying parts. After that, the customer was easier to persuade to stay out during dyno flogs.
I'm digressing but it's still about a viable AV engine.

Got any more pix of the Mustang installation?

Thanks
Doug.

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

The original Jaguar 5.0 litre V12 engine was a quad cam race engine, with a gear driven valvetrain. It put out 500 bHp, but was considerd too noisy and complicated to mass produce for a reasonable cost.

The Jaguar V12 in production form is 5.3 litres, producing 295 bHp. Race versions at the same capacity vary, but all are around the 400 - 450 bHp mark. The shape of the combustion chamber was designed to get as good economy out of the engine as possible, early engines regularly returned figures between 6 - 10 mpg. This makes it difficult to get much more power. The original pre-HE engines had a flat head and are good for more power, and as a result are getting a bit rare.

Boring them out and fitting a longer stoke crank can make them go as far as 7.0 litres, and if you fit sandwich plates and longer cylinder liners, 8.0 litres is possible. In 7.0 litre form the Le Mans racers in the mid 1980's had about 700 BHp out of it.

I have heard tell of near 900 bHp out of a V12 using twin superchargers.... but by this point it's all getting a bit expensive to find power.

Especially when you consider the main idea behind the Jaguar V12 was to pull 2000kg of saloon car at fairly low revs.

Regards

Ric
(self confessed classic Jaguar adddict)

Beautifull !! workmanship and engineering, could very well be the future.
Thanks for sharing the info and photo's.
Metalman

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Lets keep old metal flying

A race engine for a car is the opposite of what an airplane engine requires. In the air you need reliability above (pun included) all else. Power and economy are secondary. The race car engines have to be ultra powerful, some like drag cars don't even have to run more than a few minutes, some like Indy for 3 hours.
Hopping up a Jag V-12 with high compression and supercharger is not the way I'd go for an airplane. If you build a replica Mustang, ie Stewart and it weighs 1/4 of an original you need 1/4 original power, or 425hp. For 1/3 to 1/2 weight, like a Thunder it needs 550hp minimum IF you want REAL Mustang performance. There are other factors like streamlining, but power to weight is a big one.So a Falconer at about 550 unblown had enough juice. You can buzz up a regular Chevy car engine to get 550 but not as reliable. I recall that the guys trying to catch the Mustangs at Reno put a supercharger or turbo on a Falconer. I don't think it was anywhere near a race Mustang in speed, but we don't know for sure as it burned up shortly. I'd never fly a supercharged Thunder cross country. The plane was fast and high performance with the stock engine, unblown. It did not need to be made faster and less reliable, it really needed slightly longer wings and or more flaps so it could land a little slower, and it needed more to be built and hopefully find ways to make it easier and cheaper to build. They had the performance, most of the looks and handling, and a roomy interior. It needed more cool cash and less hot air, too bad it did not survive. A fatal crash like that one can often doom a new program.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

While with Ryan we did a number of stock block automotive engine conversions for Geschwender Aeromotive. These were Ford 427's and even a Chrysler hemi. Twin turbo but low RPM and very low boost. Just to give lots of torque and good power with reliability. Boy were they stump-pullers! Sorry for the crappy pics but you get the idea.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Oooooo! Twin puffers on a big block! Pure eye candy!
Doug

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

A big problem with the Jag-engined Spitfire was.... cooling.

The radiator was situated in the same position as the real thing, but they couldn't get the thing to work properly for a prolonged period of time, despite modifying and fitting additional cooling aparatus.

Shame, really, as it was a nice-looking aircraft. The Jurca MJ-100 (full-scale Spitfire replica) was meant to be powered by a minimum of 500hp - the first, French-built example having 690hp - but this was found to be wofeully inadequate, and subsequent builders have opted for Allison engines instead (like Bob DeFord).

I've never found out how far along the Russ Harmuth project was these days...

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Cheers

Daz